How about preventing insider trading by our lawmakers?
How about preventing lawmakers from actively voting on laws from which they personally will benefit?

STOCK Act passes in House

Quote:

The House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would prevent members of Congress from financial market trading based on nonpublic information they have obtained in the course of their congressional work.

The bill, which was approved 417 to 2, is similar to a bill approved last week by the Senate, but does not include a provision regulating those in the financial information business.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor stripped a provision requiring those that collect financial information and sell it to Wall Street to register the same way lobbyists do. The House legislation does include a provision that would extend the new regulations to include the executive branch as well.

The bill may now head to a special committee of lawmakers tasked with reconciling the differences between the House and Senate bill. Alternately, the Senate could take up the House-passed version of the bill and make changes before sending the bill to Mr. Obama for his signature.

Will Oswego Lake be occupied?
Occupy group may try to go onto Oswego Lake March 22

Quote:

A floating version of an Occupy encampment could be coming to Lake Oswego.

The target: Oswego Lake, which has made headlines during a revival of the long-running,
on-again, off-again debate over public versus private access.
Controlled by a corporation of lakefront property owners, the lake is considered private.
But some people outside of the city, along with a few residents, have persisted with questions.

Since Oregon became a state, all land under waterways capable of transporting
people and goods has generally been considered state-owned.
Regardless of ownership, in 2005, Oregon’s attorney general said the public
is allowed to use lakes and rivers so long as the water is deep and wide enough to boat in.
<snip>

But Lake Oswego residents, including waterfront property owners,
have raised concerns about public access threatening safety and environmental resources,
as well as potential impacts on property values and city tax revenue.

Now, although the Lake Oswego City Council and Planning Commission members
have voiced support in recent months for keeping the “status quo” with the lake’s exclusivity,
it looks like the debate will continue. <snip>

Although organizers implied the date could change because it conflicts with World Water Day,
“Occupy Oswego Lake” is apparently set for March 22.

Will Oswego Lake be occupied?
Occupy group may try to go onto Oswego Lake March 22

.

I'm surprised the access rights are so poorly defined. Does that mean whatever limits the owners have on power boats etc... would also be voided? Are the hippie canoe occupiers somewhat ironically opening the flood gates to jet skis and all manner of noxious activity?

__________________
If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.
- Louis D. Brandeis
...how easily the learned give up the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of ideas in their imagination.
- Adam Smith
I survived the 1980s. Don’t try to scare me with terrorism. - Rick Falkvinge

opening the flood gates to jet skis and all manner of noxious activity?

This will happen if public access is granted. My family has a cottage on a formerly private lake. The state opened up a boat launch on this tiny lake before I was born, and the character of the place was changed forever. Special rules apply to the lake (hours of operation of motor boats, etc.) but there is still a lot of tension between motorboaters and people who want to have some quiet.

But, in Oregon, the other side of such issues is this.
Property boundaries can extend into the middle of a stream or river,
and some property owners try to keep people off their "water".
Then, some fishing clubs have bought property on both sides of the stream in valleys,
so they end up controlling access to ALL the property upstream of their own.
For fishermen, this is an outrage and viscously contentious
... charges of trespass vs all levels of physical fights.

It's in the courts and gradually changing over. Since 2005,
the rights of property owners have been reduced on "navigable" waterways,
so anyone can boat on the water and can walk along the shore up to the high-water boundary.

The issues on non-navigable streams and ponds is coming soon,
either as a result of something like the Occupy movement, or some sort of ridiculous tragedy.

Back in the 70's, Governor Tom McCall pushed through legislation
that all Oregon ocean beaches are State (public) property,
so property owners can not put fences from the road down into the surf.
There are some negatives effects of this too, but it's better than what was happening in some places.

I feel that, for Lake Oswego, the best route would be to have a legal decision that the water is public,
and then to have the City government work with the State Marine Board to hold public hearing and sset rules of conduct.
This has been done elsewhere and works out well, for the most part.
Of course, the wealthy L.O. property owners will not have their isolation.

Ugly winter weather has led organizers of a local Occupy event
to postpone their protest of the Lake Oswego Corporation’s long-held control of Oswego Lake.

Occupy Oswego Lake had been set for today.
But in a message posted this week on the group’s Facebook page,
organizers said they’re putting it off to a date they’ll announce later.

Quote:

“Hint: When it’s sunny, expect us,” the Facebook page says.
<snip>
“The Lake Oswego Corporation derives its power of control from a general,
yet unnecessary, acceptance of the status quo,”Occupy organizers wrote.
“This case is indicative of a larger phenomenon in our society, where money
is used to secure extralegal privileges for the few at the expense of the many.
And, as is true in a larger sense, attempts from within the political system
to correct this overreach of monied interests have thus far been unsuccessful in any real sense.

“We need only to defy the imaginary authority of the Lake Oswego Corporation by making a bit of a splash.”

<snip>
In advance of the potential Occupy Oswego Lake event this week,
lakefront property owners were preparing for a possible flood of Portland-area protestors.

Quote:

“We do have options available to us which we may or may not
choose to employ as events dictate,” Lake Oswego Corporation board president Doug Thomas
wrote in a message to shareholders.

Possible tactics included lowering the lake by at least 4 feet,
creating a soggy strip of land between public parks properties and the water.

When these folk say "Keep out of our lake",they mean it and will do whatever is necessary.

Wow! A scorched water policy.

__________________Obama2012 - We did it again!
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- BarackHussein Obama

Crocodiles!
Few hundred gallons of fuel oil and a lighted match ....
Sharks - with lasers on their heads!
Oooohhhh ... blue-green algae that produces toxins that makes any contact with the water hazardous...
Brain-eating amoeba ...
Damn, I'm good at this.

On Friday, June 8th, the Montgomery County Correctional Facility made a contract with ICE and are now setting aside up to 60 beds for undocumented people. Basically, they're holding undocumented immigrants before ICE goes to pick them up. Read more about it here: http://bit.ly/KKZMpK

Are we going to be silent? HELL NO! We will come out of the shadows and declare ourselves Undocumented, Unafraid, and Unapologetic! We will come out publicly and risk arrest, we need to fight back together! We demand the jail refuse to honor ICE detainers! Join us as we rally and march against the detention and deportation of our community!

I wonder if it has occurred to any of their organizers that they might end up occupying the prison in a manner other than which they intend?